pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Last month, PacTrans Assistant Director, Cole Kopca, traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend the Tribal Colleges & Universities (TCU) and University Transportation Centers (UTC) Summit. This event was held as a pre-conference workshop as part of the First Americans Land-Grant Consortium (FALCON) conference.  The summit attracted over 80 representatives from various tribal colleges and universities and Native student-serving programs are registered to attend the UTC event.

The program began with some remarks by Arlando Teller, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Tribal Affairs at the US Department of Transportation. Then each of the eleven participating University Transportation Centers had the opportunity to make quick introductions. The remainder of the day’s programming revolved around a series of roundtable discussions. There were a total of four topics discussed: (1) Research/Training/Workforce Development Needs, (2) TCU-UTC Education Linkages, (3) Career Exposure & Outreach, and (4) Strategies and Guiding Principles for Establishing Mutually Beneficial Partnerships.

The workshop provided an excellent platform for university transportation centers to make connections with Tribal Colleges and Universities and seek opportunities for collaborations. PacTrans is excited to continue such dialogue into the future.